National Police Service

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

No, we cannot, because at the moment cyber crime issues are dealt with by the National Crime Agency. We are looking to establish a national police force area. Fraud is with the City of London Police, and very shortly I will bring to this Parliament a new revised fraud strategy. We are looking first and foremost at the reorganisation of police force sizes; secondly, at what we need to do nationally on procurement, IT, forensics and other issues; and thirdly, at where best those services fit and whether we have a national police service that oversees all those issues or the City of London Police ultimately keeps that provision. In the fraud strategy coming shortly, the City of London Police plays an extremely central role.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, can the Minister enlighten us as to the sort of pace at which he envisages this moving? I have every confidence in 43 chief constables and 200 or so assistant chief constables and so on finding plenty of reasons why the reorganisation of police force areas is much more complicated than is recognised and will take a long time. So can he give us an indication on pace? While he is about it, can he also tell us how he envisages the local police areas being accountable? What is the line of accountability to them? Is it just the regional forces or is it also local communities?